The president of Detroit’s largest city employee union, AFSCME, which represents nearly 3,000 workers, said today the union is willing to make changes in some parts of its contracts to help save the city.

“I’m expecting the city to give us a call,” Al Garrett said a day after standing with the mayor and other city officials at a press conference to declare solidarity. “We’re going to have a table, not the traditional table, and fashion out an agreement that includes not only concessions, but other changes. I have a team already assigned. I have sent the paperwork to be analyzed by our national office in Washington. We are positioned to deal. We have never refused to deal.”

“If they call, we’re willing to make adjustments that impact the fiscal crisis,” he said.

Garrett was forcefully clear that the union is not opening up its entire contract to change and negotiation. But he said that his team is prepared to discuss health care and pension costs.

“Opening the contract suggests that everything is on the table and in discussion,” he said. “We’re willing to discuss and make changes in some of the parts of the contract. But it still has to be approved by our members.”

Garrett’s announcement came just hours after State Treasurer Andy Dillon announced that the Department of Treasury would conduct a review of the city’s finances, beginning Tuesday. Dillon’s statement regarding the review, which does not necessarily result in the appointment of a financial manager, said that “a financially stable Detroit is critical to the reinvention of Michigan.”

The best thing to happen is that city officials are finally communicating with each other – and with the unions, Garrett said. He said that Mayor Bing and his union have only been really talking for about four days.

He described a year-long process where the mayor declined to discuss other potential revenue sources or their ideas to change union contracts. The urgent possibility of an emergency manager taking over city financial management has changed the tenor and tone of conversations.

“I’m saying to you that there is willingness to move in those areas the mayor has identified,” Garrett said. “But the issue is you just don’t fix one problem and then sit down. Our problem is they would take the members’ wages and sit down, and I’m saying that will never be the solution to the problem. We’ve got to do things differently. We have to collect our revenues, a problem that goes back to (Former Mayor) Coleman Alexander Young. There was more emphasis on cutting employees’ wages rather than collecting revenue.”

Garrett couldn’t be more right. Even during the press conference the mayor declared that Detroit can fix Detroit for Detroit, he also asked for state helping collecting more than $150 million in uncollected taxes.”

Garrett said there’s more than that sitting around and more opportunities for cuts than just hitting the unions.

“(Former DPS emergency financial manager) Robert Bobb — the one thing he got right was he brought the vendors in just as General Motors brought the vendors in and gave them a shave. There’s never been a shave of the vendors. “

Bing has expressed interest in approaching vendors, but Garrett said he has not done it.

So as the press conferences against the EM law continue and the rallies continue and the city remains defiant, the head of the largest union was sitting in his office Friday — ready to help the mayor out.

“We are waiting for their call. Our members recognize that we have to do something to save the city, save their jobs and continue to provide service to the City of Detroit.”